Your intrepid liquor reporter lives in a world of endless wonder. Yes, gentle reader, it seems that every time I visit my local booze merchant, there is a new and exciting craft beer on the shelves, practically begging me to take it home.
The new brew in question is from Calgary’s latest crafty concern, Tool Shed Brewing.
If you are one of those boozers who stick to the same-old same-old brand of beer every time, you may not have noticed the new labels on the shelf. Fortunately, your humble narrator is always ready to get his hands on a nice new set of cans, and I’m not just talking about beer.
Tool Shed Brewing was the brainchild of a pair of Calgary-based IT geeks, who started out with some backyard home brewing last year (in the tool shed, no less).
Well, that homebrew experiment in the backyard tool shed seemed to work out pretty well, as they soon decided to go pro, and the idea for the Tool Shed Brewery was born.
Sadly, the long arm of Johnny Law put a damper on their plans, when they tried to get the business license from the government.
It can be a tough slog for a small brewery to get off the ground in Alberta, as the powers that be will only grant a license if your annual brewing capacity on day one is at least half a million litres. You don’t actually have to brew half a million litres per year, it’s just that your brewing facility must be capable of doing so.
This is a high bar to meet, and makes it hard to start out small and grow over time, as a large investment needs to be made in the brewing facility before the first batch of beer is bottled.
To work around the red tape, Tool Shed Brewing is currently having their beer contract-brewed by Dead Frog Brewing in BC. Profits are being rolled back into brewery investments, and the founders hope to have their own brewery up and running in Calgary within the next year or so.
Their first batch of beer hit the shelves of Alberta in July, and can be widely found at well-stocked booze merchants, as well as drinking establishments where beer geeks tend to gather. Naturally, your humble narrator was quick to sample all three.
The first thing I noticed was that the labels were not printed onto the cans. Rather, they were stick-on labels that wrapped all the way around, making it entirely irresistible to peel them off while drinking and stick them in inappropriate places. Let’s hope this practice continues, as it makes for a fun night out with your drinking buddies!
The first can that I popped was the People Skills Cream Ale, easily the most approachable of the bunch. This is definitely a beer that will not scare off the macrobrew drinkers who were raised on a steady diet of Coors Lite.
An unfiltered beer, it pours a light golden haze into my glass, with hints of grain and vegetal esters on the nose. Very little hop bitterness makes it easy to drink, with a nicely balanced malt providing a light to medium bodied ale that is a crowd pleaser.
Moving on to the next brew, I opened the Red Rage, made in the style of an Amber Ale, and I must admit that it was my favourite of the bunch!
Pouring a dark red, the Red Rage is named after a ginger-haired founder of the brewery, and is a full-on malt bomb of flavour. Lots of caramel and toffee in the mouth feel, offset with an herbal hoppiness in the background. In fact, it was so tasty that I opened another can almost immediately.
The third and final beer is the Star Cheek IPA, so named because one of the brewery founders gets flush in the face after a few pints, hilariously exposing a perfectly symmetrical white star on one cheek, that seems to glow more brightly with every pint.
Made in the North American IPA style, with plenty of citrusy hops and grapefruit aromas on the nose. Unlike some of the more extreme IPA’s out there, the Star Cheek IPA is plenty hoppy, but not ridiculously so. If you enjoy a nice IPA without a thunderclap of hop bitterness, give this brew a try.
You’ve never had a better chance to support local industry, so get out there and try some Tool Shed beer today!
